never regret – soundofwavesnet

Be Kind To Yourself

From my childhood, my mother taught me how to talk to elders, how to not be rude to people, how to treat everyone with respect and so much more about how to treat others. I think except on the days I have woken up on the wrong side of the bed, I am generally pleasant, respectful and good to others (I think, at least in my head). But the recent days I have come to a realization. Parents, teachers, our mentors or whoever is giving us a lesson gives it from their perspective on how to behave in a society. All that is good. We live in a civilized society. We cannot function without each other and we cannot live our daily lives without other people supporting us through it. No matter how self sustaining you think you are, everyone needs at least one other person to help them out even in a small way. But you also need yourself – to work through the things in your life, to be a sane civilized human being in the society, to exist.

So everyone you meet in your every day life, they teach you something, anything, even if it is a very small thing, it is something. But, the thing that people don’t teach you is – how to be kind to yourself. They really don’t. And times when you really need to be respectful to yourself – you dive into self loathing, self criticism, hatred for oneself, injuring yourself, eating foods that don’t help you in any damn way, hurting yourself in ways you and only you know would hurt you the most. Nobody teaches you how to take care of yourself. All the self help articles, medical professionals and counselors everyone talks about taking your time, doing things that help you heal and talking about it to someone. So many, many, many things to try and heal. All that is great advice but it is not tailored advice. It never is. It is again, from their perspective things that “might” help you which have helped others. Others who have been kind enough to listen to others. Others who have taken their time to heal. Others who have learnt somewhere along the way to be kind to themselves.

You would think it would be common practice to be kind to oneself. I have realized it is not. As much as we like to blame others out loud or show our anger on others, our inner conscience knows who’s at fault really. Every scenario, every situation in life, there comes a point where everyone thinks, was there something I could have done. Why did I do something the way I did. What is wrong with me. I wish I could have done it differently. It is an easy question to ask yourself. Very easy because there is no one else to negate it or question it or say yes you are at fault. Retrospectively, you know you could have done better because you have had all the time in the world to think of alternate solutions and other ways a problem could have been solved or how things could have worked out differently, but given a time machine to send you back to that moment and given the information you had at the time you made your decision, you would still make the same choices and do what you did. That is how humans work. That is how time works.

I am not here to pour out some long drawn out advice because I have none. I am still struggling with how to be kind to myself. I still don’t know how to tell myself it is okay to make mistakes, how to not be so self critical that I lose my sanity, how to not blame myself for every little thing not going my way. This big rant right here, is my frustration that I never learnt how to be kind to myself. I never learnt how to not be angry with myself for everything. I never learnt how to let go and just be.

The funny part is, no matter how much you blame yourself, you continue to exist and live and move on and continue to face things you fear. So why not do it with some courage. Why not do it with some self love. Why not do it with the fact that you and only you can hold yourself and pull yourself up. Because time never stops and neither do you. Time will make people and memories fade away from your life but not how you feel about yourself. So why let that time move on with so much self hatred? You have an entire life to live with yourself. Be kind to yourself.

Stress… anxiety and Life

End of a long busy weekend you would think it would relieve the stress off of your mind. But surprise! The day after the long weekend it does feel fresh but definitely the stress guest is still residing in the space of your head. The morning bright day does not bother you. You will always wish you had one extra day to relax and start work fresh but let me tell you no matter how many days of leave you get it will never be enough unless your work is your one true love of your life. But for most of the people working in IT weekends are never enough.

Anxiety is like a worm. You have no clue from where it creeps in and what triggers it. No amount of holidays, vacations, time off, therapy can get it out of your head. Only you can. We have a lot of choices in life but all of it boils down to two things at the end. You can either whine about what is stressing you out or you can stop worrying and start acting out on an action plan. Every problem has a solution if not today definitely later. One step at a time is the mantra to any problem. You will at least feel better you accomplished something that day even if the problem exists. However small the step towards solution and however difficult that might be it is critical to getting rid of the problems in your life. There is no better motivation than yourself. Believe!

Remember Rome was not built in a day so is the solution to your problem!

Never Regret…

I don’t remember what made me do it, but back in college I had promised myself I would never regret about anything in life. A good promise, hard to keep.

Regrets in life are like a bag of chips. You know its bad, but when you eat one you cannot stop with one. You start regretting one tiny little thing and then realize your list growing long, long, long, longer every passing minute. And if you by any chance become sad because of those regrets (which eventually you will), there is no coming out of that abyss. At one point, you would start regretting your existence. What is the point then? What is the point of those times you had laughed so hard you cried? What is the point of those times when you had fought with your family or friends and made all attempts to convince them because you loved them more than the silly fights? What is the point of those times when you had worked your ass off at your work place? One regret and the value of everything that mattered to you goes down the drain.

Why do we regret? It is a natural reaction to something we wish had not happened the way it did. It is a very strong emotion that can completely change the way you look at things. Well, we don’t have a time machine to go back in time and change what happened. Do we?

Never Regret. You cannot change what has happened. What will happen is always in your control, so you can still fix things in the future. You can learn from your mistake, instead of wasting time regretting it. If it is not in your control, then you have even more reasons not to worry about it, though that does not mean you don’t do anything about it. I strongly believe everything happens for a reason. Every little thing, good or bad, has its own consequence, maybe not now but later. Every moment teaches you something. See it as a learning, try not to do the same mistake next time, pat yourself, put a big smile on your face and try harder next time, there is nothing that you cannot do.

You fall, you rise, you learn and that is how you fly. But never Regret.